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America in the 1950s
The Eisenhower Era
American Society
• The Baby Boom– Between 1946 and
1961, 63.5 million babies
– Effects • Short term• Long term
American Society
• Economic Boom– “The Affluent Society”
• Consumer Demand– Why? – For what?
American Society• Growth of the
Middle Class– Suburbs
• Levittown
– Reemergence of the Cult of Domesticity
• Reflected by TV• Dr. Benjamin
Spock
– Sunbelt vs. Frostbelt
• Why?• How?
American Society• Sunbelt vs.
Frostbelt– Why?– How?
American Society• Pop Culture
– 1950s – the decade of the greatest conformity in American history? Why or why not?
• Television
• Movies
American Society• Rock n’ Roll
– Elvis Presley– Generation
Gap
American Society• Art: Abstract Expressionism
– Jackson Pollock– Willem de Koonig
American Society• The Beat
Generation (beatniks)– Late 1950s– Jack Kerouac’ s On
the Road– Allen Ginsburg– Characteristics
American Society
• Conformity– Middle class values
and anti-communism– Examples– David Riesman’s The
Lonely Crowd (1950)
• Resistance to Conformity– Civil Rights– Rock n’ Roll– Beat Generation
Politics of the 1950s
• Election of 1952 – Review – “I Like Ike” Ad
• Eisenhower defeats Adlai Stevenson
Domestic Politics
• Dynamic Conservatism– Meant “being conservative when it comes to
money and liberal when it comes to human beings.”
– Social Security benefits extended– Minimum wage raised to $1 an hour– Pragmatic, less ideological – What does this
mean?
Domestic Politics• Dynamic Conservatism
– Interstate Highway System – Why? Effects?– St. Lawrence Seaway– Creates Department of HEW – Why?– Three balanced budgets in eight years
Domestic Politics• Ike Reelected in 1956
– Defeats Stevenson again
Electoral vote 457 - 73States carried 41 - 7Popular vote 35,579,180 -
26,028,028Percentage 57.4% - 42.0%
Domestic Politics
• Labor Unions
• Merger of AFL-CIO - 1955
• Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters
• Landrum-Griffin Act - 1959
1959
Domestic Politics
• Alaska and Hawaii become the 49th and 50th states– Alaska – 1958– Hawaii – 1959
Civil Rights
• Earl Warren (and Ike)• Brown v. Board of
Education, Topeka Kansas 1954– Overturned Plessy v.
Ferguson– “Separate educational
facilities are inherently unequal.”
Civil Rights
• Response to Brown– Massive resistance in
the South
Protesting the Little Rock Nine
Civil Rights• Montgomery Bus Boycott
– 1955-1956– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.– Rosa Parks
Civil Rights
• Little Rock, Arkansas– Little Rock Nine– Ike’s Response
Civil Rights• Dr. King and
non-violence
• Sit-ins– Greensboro
• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Civil Rights
• What is the point of the cartoon?
Civil Rights• Other minorities
– Mexican-Americans• Bracero program• “Operation Wetback”
– Native Americans• Reverses New Deal law
Cold War
• Key Advisors– John Foster Dulles
• (SoS)
– Allen Dulles (CIA)• Eisenhower’s foreign policy
– Korea (visits in December 1952)– Liberation of Eastern Europe– Massive retaliation – define– Brinksmanship– Rejected containment – Why?
Cold War• American Reactions
– Spending– Cheyenne Mountain– The Greenbriar– http://www.greenbrier.c
om/site/bunker-gallery/
• Cheyenne Mountain
Cold War• Mutual Assured Destruction
(MAD)– Define: deterrent
• “New Look Military”• Farewell Address
– Warning: growth of the military-industrial complex
Cold War• Stalin dies-1953
• Warsaw Pact– 1955
• New Soviet leader – Nikita Khrushchev– “Peaceful
coexistence” or– “We will bury you”
(economically)
Cold War Events
• Geneva Summit – 1955
• Hungarian Uprising-1956
• Suez Crisis – 1956– Nasser and Egypt– Britain, France & Israel attack Egypt – Why?
• Eisenhower Doctrine
Cold War Events
• Sputnik– 1957 (above, right)
• National Defense Education Act
• Explorer I launched– 1958 (below, right)– NASA founded
Cold War Events• Conflict with the
USSR– Kitchen Debates– U-2 Incident
The Cold War & the CIA
• Iran – 1953– Coup that installed the
Shah as dictator– Iranian revenge in
1979
• Guatemala – 1954
Vietnam
• Ho Chi Minh
• Dien Bien Phu – 1954– Vietnam divided – how?– Ngo Dinh Diem
• SEATO
• Domino Theory
Cuba• Fidel Castro
– Successful coup, January 1, 1959– American response
The Affluent Society
• New Industrial Society– R & D– Computers– Silicon Valley
The Affluent Society
• New Industrial Society– Effects– Rachel Carson
The Affluent Society• Was everyone wealthy?
– Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man– Michael Harrington
• The Other America: Poverty in the United States